Great Prayer Day

Tomorrow (Friday) is Great Prayer Day in Denmark, a national holiday. It is the fourth Friday after Easter and has been an official holiday since 1686. Historically, people would go to church, but now it's a three day weekend and a lot of people take advantage of it to go to their summer house or do some travelling.

The biggest tradition that remains for Great Prayer Day is eating hveder (pron. vel-uh), the buns pictured above. They're fluffy wheat rolls with cardamom. Historically, everything was closed for the holiday (now most stores are closed, but not everything), so bakers sold these on Thursday for people to heat up at home on Friday. However, I'm not sure why these were better for eating the next day than normal bread. Today, hveder are sold only during the week of Great Prayer Day. Although people eat them all week while they're available, the tradition is to eat them the night before Great Prayer Day (today) and also on Friday.